


Home, or You Can't Take The Sky From Me

by angelholme



Category: No Man's Sky (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Journal Transcript, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:53:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9650444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelholme/pseuds/angelholme
Summary: I was on my way to my new home when a freak space/time anomaly flung me to an entirely new part of space.Now I have to find my way home while navigating a hostile and unknown universe.





	1. 2017-02-10 : Alone in a hostile and strange world

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer**
> 
> No Man's Sky (et al) belongs to Sony (and probably some others).
> 
> Any other references (Firefly, Green Gables, The Oracle Trilogy) belong to the people who own them, and that will become clear as the story progresses. 
> 
> **Notes**
> 
> This story will be told as a first person tale of someone in the world of "No Man's Sky" - someone trying to make their way home. It will be partly based on my own experiences, but will also be a fictionalised version of them. 
> 
> It will also be littered with references to almost everything I love, because that's the way I do things. However almost all of the references will either be so obvious or will be assigned, so I do not consider it to be plagiaristic :)
> 
> And finally it will be somewhat intermittent because I will write it as I go and get inspired. It is somewhat "cracky" in that it will happen as I play the game as well when I write, so don't expect the entire story to be told all at once :)

11:22am

I hope this is recording...... I can't see my ship, and I have no clue if the audio/transcript/upload function is still working or not. If it's not, and I am just talking to myself, then I guess I am just a crazy person talking to myself. But if it is working, then at least there will be a record of everything I am going through. 

I guess i should start at the beginning - Maria Von Trapp was always a useful role model - so here goes. 

My family and I were travelling in a larger convoy to our new home on Lave. Because of the convoy size, we had to come out of hyperspace a long way outside of the planetary system, so the journey to the space-station took was going to take about eight hours, even using the jump drive. 

About four hours in, we were attacked by pirates. I was on one of the defensive wings, so I went to fight them off. Which is where my memory gets a bit fuzzy. I know that I chased one of them down..... and I remember blowing him up, but just as I was turning back there was a flash of light and...... 

Yeah - that's where I get more than a little confused. There seemed to be a huge glowing ball of light - far larger and brighter than the sun - and I really didn't have any chance to react before my ship flew straight into it. 

There was a..... few seconds? Maybe twenty? Not sure - but I passed through what appeared to be a tunnel of light, and then my ship shot out of the other side at a speed far faster than it was ever supposed to travel. I tried to regain control of it but it was like pissing into the wind - and that task became even harder when nearly every alarm started to sound at once. 

Looking out of my cockpit I saw a planet in the distance - not Lave (after studying it for eighteen months I knew my new home like the back of my hand) but one that I did not recognise at all. However given that the air was running out, the heat-shields were on the verge of crapping out and I am pretty sure the engines were on the verge of exploding, I decided crashing into a planet was better than dying in space. 

And I was right, but only just. 

I..... I will tell you more shortly, because right now there is a dinosaur coming over the ridge.

12:15pm

Hopefully you will be able to hear me, because I am having to whisper right now. I am hiding in a cave under the ridge, hoping that the dinosaur I mentioned before will leave me alone. Currently it is grazing on a tallish tree, which does make me think it might not want to eat me after all (but who knows what kind of weird ass creatures they have at this end of the universe - did I mention the tree is bright red and the dinosaur is kind of blue with red armour plates sticking off its back?). 

Since I might be here for a while, I might as well continue the dramatic story of my arrival. 

I made it through the atmosphere pretty much okay, which given my ship was never meant to fly in a planetary atmosphere, let alone land was a fairly impressive feat in itself, and then I managed to sort of half land, half crash into the surface without exploding into a huge ball of flame. 

Which I realise sounds like good news, but before you start celebrating, the main reason my ship didn't tear itself apart or perform a final act of self-immolation was that the primary safety systems had kicked in the way they should, which was good news for the not-dying aspect of my life, but bad news for the ever-wanting-to-take-off-again part. By which I mean - in the event of catastrophic failure of the ship (a failure so bad that it could never be recovered from - ever, ever, ever) there was a built in system to cocoon the engines in twenty tonnes of lead. They were literally sealed off from the rest of the universe by a wall of lead so thick it would be impossible to get through it without an industrial welding torch and a month of work. 

Neither of which I would have access to any time soon - so, for all intents and purposes my ship was dead. 

The dinosaur is leaving - seems that the tree has filled it up. So I am going to finish what I was doing before it arrived - getting iron, carbon and zinc - and then return to my ship. My new ship. 

1:55pm

I am back at my new ship - The Antonia Graza (you will learn, as the days go on, I have a somewhat warped sense of humour!) - and using the minerals I recovered to fix it up. So while I do this I will carry on with the story of how I decided that this planet was not going to be my grave - that I was going to find my way home. That I was going to see my family again. 

After I had realised that my ship was never going to fly, I also realised I had two choices. I could accept my fate - grow old and die on this planet (or just end my life there and then) or I could set out to find a way off the planet and eventually find a way home to my wife and kids. 

My decision was made a lot easier when I saw three ships flying in formation overhead. It struck me like a thunderbolt - if there was other intelligent life in this part of the universe (I was assuming I was still in the same universe, even if it was a vastly different galaxy) then maybe someone could help me. Help me get home, or at least help me get a new ship. 

I walked back to the cargo bay, and hit the emergency release. The side door blew off, flying out on to the purple grass outside. Picking up my gun from the safe it was kept in, I took my first steps out into this strange new world I had been thrown into and - I have to admit - it was beautiful. 

The sun was cresting over the top of a hill in the distance, and I could see the outlines of two planets further off in the sky - one orange and one blue. I walked up the hill and found myself staring down at a light green ocean stretching out as far as I could see in front of me. 

Looking around, I realised that there was a trail of smoke leading down to where my ship had crashed. But then - as I turned a little further - I saw another trail of smoke leading downwards from the sky. It disappeared behind a hill that was about a thousand yards away. 

Taking a deep breath, I set off walking, heading towards what I hoped was another ship - one that was less beat up than mine. 

And it looks like the engines are fixed, so I will take a short break to get something to eat, because turns out repairing the engines of a ship you hadn't seen twenty four hours before now is a lot harder than you would think.

2:20pm

Well - I have at least confirmed all of this is recording, so I can comfort myself I am not talking to myself like a crazy person. Of course there is every chance no one will ever hear these recordings, so I might still be talking to myself, but that's future me's problem.

And, from what I can tell, the diagnostics on The Antonia Graza all check out, so I am about to see if I can actually get it to take off. It is fully fuelled and repaired so hopefully I should be flying in no time.

But before I fly this shiny new piece of wonder off into the sky, I will - finally - finish telling you how it came into my possession.

I tromped across the surface of the planet, heading for the column of smoke, for what seemed like forever (although, as it turns out, it was only about ten minutes). There was a slight detour around a huge pit (that looked like it went down to the centre of the planet) but aside from that it was fairly easy going. 

When I reached the top of the hill, I have to admit my heart dropped a little - there was a ship, but it looked to be as much of a wreck as mine was. But I didn't recognise the class or profile at all, so a tiny part of me hoped that appearances might be deceiving and I continued on my way. 

I reached it, and examined the ship and found out that it was actually more or less in working order. The engines needed a bit of work, as did the life support systems, launch thrusters and weapons but aside from that it was in pretty good shape. 

I also found a strange bio-hazard suit inside it, that was labelled an ExoSuit. It had several pouches in it - ones that seemed to be..... dimensionally transcendental. I tried reaching into one, and my arm sank in a lot further than I would have imagined it should have. It also had a scanning device and a mining device that appeared to double as a weapon. Given that - two hours earlier - I had been playing hide and seek with a dinosaur - having some kind of weaponry seemed like a good idea, so I took the suit and put it on. 

I then looked at the ship, and found that - very helpfully - there were instructions on how to fix the engines, the life support system, the thrusters and the weapons. It told me what minerals and elements I needed to mine, and how I would use them to fix the systems that needed fixing. 

Which pretty much brings me up to where I am now - about to lift off from the surface of this planet in The Antonia Graza to explore this strange new world. 

Oh - and I also learned the name of this planet. The spaceship has a system called "THE ATLAS" - from what I can tell it is a complete.... well, Atlas of every galaxy, solar system, planet and moon in this universe. It has all their names and co-ordinates, but nothing about the planets themselves. It's as if someone sent out a remote drone to look at the planets and make a note of where they are, then assign random names to them and store them in a central system. 

However the random name assigned to this planet is Exhanltma Goepriraa IV, which is one of the most stupid, idiotic names I have ever heard - not to mention remarkably hard to pronounce. 

So I have decided to take advantage of something else I found in "THE ATLAS" system - someone who finds a planet can choose to register their discovery and they get the honour of naming it. This planet was unnamed and unclaimed, so - henceforth - it will be known as Rilla's Refuge, after one of my favourite characters in fiction. 

And so, for now, I am signing off. I would like to try to talk you through the maiden voyage of the newly rechristened Antonia Graza, but given I have never flown a ship like this before (and had never seen a ship like this before up until a few hours ago) I am probably going to need to concentrate and there might be a lot of swearing and cussing, so it's probably best that I turn off the transcript program for the time being.

This is Lucy Locket, signing off. 

(2017-02-10, 2:55pm, Rilla's Refuge, Avonlea Solar System, Elucid Galaxy).


	2. 2017-02-12 : Sentinel Stories

5:52am

Well today I learned three very important lessons. Lessons that - if I am going to get back to Lave (and to my family) - I will definitely need to remember. 

The first is that Thamium9 and Plutonium are the two most important minerals (elements - whatever) I am ever going to need. 

You can recharge your mining beam with them, your plasma grenade with them, your protection gear with them. But you can only recharge your life support system with Thamium, and you can only charge your launch thrusters with Plutonium. So - lesson 1 : don't use them for any of the other things you can put them to, and make sure you have more than enough. If you think you need 250 units, try to get 500. If you think you need 500, try to get 1000. Because if you run out of Thamium, you will be stuck in the middle of nowhere, gasping for air and eventually dying - and trust me, that is not a good way to go (although that feeds into lesson 2, which I will get to in a moment). And if you run out of Plutonium, you will be stuck on the planet until you can find some more. Or until you run out of Thamium and end up dying, which is also bad.

The second lesson is one I was not expecting - which is that exosuit has some kind of transporter device in it. As does The Antonia Graza. 

What do I mean by that? I am glad you asked. Let me explain with a story. 

I was on the second planet I found - Orchard Slope (yes - I renamed that one as well, going with a theme of my eldest daughter's favourite books) - I was mining more Plutonium (see Lesson One) when a strange robot flew over my head. It banked round and flew back towards me. And then - for reasons I didn't understand (and still don't) - it attacked me, raining laser bolts down on my head. 

This came as quite a surprise - up until then the biggest dangers I had faced were accidental falling off a cliff and dinosaurs. And while I admit neither of those should be underestimated (in the danger/death stakes) compared to lightening raining down from the heavens they are pretty easy to avoid. 

So I died. Except.... I didn't. At the point I thought I was about to die, my suit transported me back to my ship (where I had landed it about three hours before) and dumped me inside it. I was not dead and my ship managed to heal all the wounds I had received from the lightening. It took me about five minutes to realise that all the minerals I had mined were gone - the exosuit was empty - but quite honestly, the "not being dead" thing was kind of a relief, so I could live without the minerals. 

After spending a few minutes basking in my "not deadness", I glanced at the scanner, and saw that there was a small flashing dot on it. I zoomed in and found out that it was located in exactly the spot where I had died, and was marked "Lucy Locket (The Antonia Graza) - Generation 1"

Charging up my weapon (just in case those bloody robots decided to come back to finish the job. Again!) I climbed out of the ship and headed back to the point where I had died, which was where I found the strangest thing I have ever seen. Well - the strangest thing I have ever seen so far (because this is only my third day at this end of the universe, and I am pretty sure things will only get weirder). 

It was a gravestone with my name on it. People rarely get to see that in real life, and it is kind of sobering. I stared at it for a few minutes, then walked up to it and the moment I rested my hand on it the indicators in my exosuit started filling up again - all the minerals and so on that I had lost when the robots killed me were now back in my possession. 

So - that's how I learned I can now apparently come back from the dead and then go and get my stuff. Which is more than a little bit freaky when you think about it. After I picked up my belongings, I looked it up on THE ATLAS and it turns out starships have the same ability - if they are on the verge of being destroyed, they will transport themselves to the nearest safe location (generally a space station or a freighter) but the energy required to do that means the cargo is dumped in space and you have to go pick it up once you have regenerated. There is also the possibility some of the equipment in the ship might get damaged as well and will need repairing. But, like I said, compared to being blown to bits and having your atoms spread throughout the void of space...... losing your cargo is not such a high price to pay. 

And the third lesson relates to the second lesson - in that I learned what the hell those robots are. 

While I was exploring Orchard Slope (Generation 2 me, apparently) I came across a remarkably large building. By which I mean HUGELY large - I had seen one or two other buildings in the distance, and I had found one building but it was locked up and I couldn't find a way into it - but this one had five separate buildings, each one of which was seven floors high, all which were interconnected by a series of walkways. I walked around it for a few minutes, but I could only find one entrance - one that was surprisingly unlocked and opened when I walked up to it. 

I entered in and found an alien - one that looked kind of like a Disoen - sat in a chair, working at a console. It.... he? Looked up at me and spoke a language that I really did not understand at all. I told him that I didn't understand, and he seemed to smile. He then handed me a memory card, then waved his hand as if dismissing me. I looked around the rest of the room and then turned and left. 

After returning to The Graza, I plugged the memory card in and........ well :-

"SENTINELS :-

Sentinels are the robotic guardians of the galaxies. They come in three forms - aerial, battle and ship. They exist to protect the planets of the galaxies from undue damage and exploitation. 

Sentinels will attack under the following circumstances :- if you attack creatures (on a planet) or ships (in space) without provocation, if you over-mine a planet's resources or if you attack them first. The sensitivity of sentinels varies from planet to planet, so be aware of your surroundings and ensure you consult THE ATLAS before setting out. 

Sentinel forces will escalate their attacks if they are defeated. However it is possible to escape them, given enough time and effort"

So apparently someone decided to build the galaxies their own security force - of incredibly powerful robots that kill at the slightest provocation. 

Lesson Three.

12:22pm

Although I am trying to name planets in this system on a theme, I am also trying to at least trying to give them reasonable names. Orchard Slope is - if I do say so myself - quite well named, given there are a lot of trees around. Which is helpful when hiding from these thrice damned sentinels. When THE ATLAS said the sensitivity varies from planet to planet, it wasn't kidding and apparently the sentinels on this planet are psychotic killing machines, because they have decided they want me dead. Every time I poke my head above the ramparts (so to speak) and try to mine anything - cut down a tree, dig up a rock - it is like the Hand of God smoting me.

So I have decided I am going to spend another hour or so here - mostly because The Graza picked up a signal that was cryptically labelled "ruins" (and there is nothing I like more than a mystery. Except - you know - my family) that is about twenty minutes away. So I am going to head off in that direction and see what I can see, then I think I am going to leave and never look back. If there is something exciting or dramatic to find, someone else can come back and find it. 

Or someone can find the central intelligence that is controlling the sentinels and calm the buggers down and then I'll come back. 

But either way, I suspect it won't be any time soon. 

12:50pm

I can see the ruins below me, and they appear to be sentinel free. Apparently there isn't a lot to dig up, and whatever is in these ruins doesn't seem to be worth protecting. 

Going to land now - so I'm going to be quiet. Still haven't entirely mastered the landing part so I need to concentrate and there is occasional........ gah!!

12:59pm

Sorry about that. I have landed. After nearly colliding with a flying squid-like creature. Which I was not expecting and was kind of surprised by. 

I didn't hit it and it flew off without a care in the world - and more importantly without being miffed enough to alert the robot army of doom and murder - so I am now ready to explore the ruins. And..... oh my gosh. They are beautiful. 

I wish this could transfer images - that you could see what I am seeing. Because when they say a picture paints a thousand words, they really should have used a picture to convey that message. 

Back on my home planet of Potedia, we have buildings that people come from all over the eight galaxies to see. Buildings that - when you look at them - make your brain wonder how they stay up, how anyone could build a structure like that. There are no other buildings like them, and we are very proud of our architects. 

But the ruin I am staring at now...... it would make Manus Lucinius ICV literally sit down and cry (which given that he can't bend in the middle and has no tear ducts...... well - you get the idea). It is clearly several million years old and has seen better days, but it is still one of the most beautiful, spectacular buildings I have ever seen. The lines, the arches....... again - I could do with a thousand words in an image because I am fast running out of adjectives. 

1:19pm

I've spent the last twenty minutes wandering around the ruin, and it is still as beautiful - but about five minutes ago I found a giant obelisk sticking out of what seemed to be the inner sanctum. The fact that a lot of the rest of the building appears to have collapsed into rubble and this obelisk is still standing did make me pause for a moment, but then I noticed there was a place to kneel in front of the obelisk - and after coming all this way, it seemed rude not to take advantage of it.

I knelt down, and rested my hands against the surface. A few seconds later, my mind was flooded with multiple images - of the system, of the planet, what seemed to be a map of the galaxy and then it all faded. I am pretty sure I will forget most of it, but what I will remember was the last two things - a new word in Korvax (although what Korvax is I am not sure) and a set of co-ordinates. Or at least I think the are co-ordinates :- they are a series of numbers that seem to locate a point in three dimensions, however without the zero point, it is going to be nigh on impossible to work out where this point is. 

Still - it will give me something to do. And hopefully it will give me something to do that doesn't involve being on this planet, because as I am talking I can see three dark blobs moving towards me in the sky....... Time for me to go!


End file.
